AZAF, Your opinions make sense too - and I trust you to provide accurate facts. So combining what your friends tell you and what some troops told a bureau chief of an unabashedly liberal American newspaper, I think we can agree that the troops have differing takes on their presence. I take it your friends are commissioned officers, while I understand the newsman spoke mainly to enlisteds. I wonder if that explains part of the divergence?

Erik, I hope your brother is o.k. I also would like to thank you for remembering one of the better presidents this country has ever had, Jimmy Carter. He had many excellent ideas that unfortunately were never acted upon, or undone once he was out of office.

i'm sure there are multiple opinions of the war among those fighting it, just as there are among the mere citizenry back home. however, i'd have to look at the bureau chief's report with a skeptical eye (how government should always be looked at). let us not forget that this administration considers the fourth estate a propoganda tool. and if i recall correctly, earlier in the war, reporters who wanted to cover the action had to be approved and embedded, which according to returning journalists was simply a way for the government to control what they saw, whom they met, and ultimately what they were able to report.

i would want to know if this bureau chief, of not a major news outlet, had unfettered access to the troops, or if there was some sort of screening that took place before he could speak to them. certainly, azairforce did have unfettered access to his fellow soldiers, and his experiences would, therefore, statistically speaking, tend to be unbiased.

no my friends are enlisted as am I.

What is your point, exactly? That only commissioned officers have negative opinions about this war? Why do you suppose enlisted officers would all be gung-ho? What a crazy comment to make. Then again...

Delete post.

[ March 08, 2005, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: bobby78751 ]

Mr. Bobby, Why not delete your penultimate post, too? It completely misreads what I said, and in a totally nonsensical way. But that's what happens when you butt in where you don't belong. If you're dedicated to posting for conflict's sake, bide your time; there'll be plenty of legitimate opportunities to come.

Congrats on using your "word of the day" in a sentence.

Your post inferred that only commissioned officers had negative opinions about the war since the "unabashedly liberal American newspaper" interviewed only enlisted troops.

GM, I have a question about your service. I think I read in your poltical profile that you're a "Vietnam-era Veteran". In my non-military understanding, this means that you served during the time of the Vietnam War but did not actually serve in Vietnam. Is this correct?

I ask simply because you imply somehow that veterans understand better than non-veterans the reasons for the Iraq war. I'm just curious if perhaps there is a distinction between how those who actually served in combat differ in their opinions from those who may not have served in combat.

This is not an attack on you or your service, but simply an attempt to understand.

KWG, correct. Vietnam was winding down when I finished boot camp in early '73 and I was assigned to serve until mid '75 in SIXTHFLT, the Mediterranean Fleet. I was at sea roughly 3/4 of that time, and we cleared mines from the Suez Canal, evacuated and relieved Cyprus and Tunisia, kept the Israelis and Egyptians away from each others' throats and performed a host of other tasks that escape me now. Coincidentally, one of my colleagues here in the AG's office was a helo-pilot aboard my ships, the USS IWO JIMA and INCHON, but we never met each other until now.

PS - "No footnotes, no regrets!" :cool:

As far a my brother goes, the latest concern he expressed to me was upgrading from mechanical to hydraulic disc brakes on his mountainbike. So I think he'll be fine if he does not get shipped out yet again and again in his postponed retirement. Maybe he'll get the chance to retire. Many Iraqi civilians and some troops will not. I always hope it was someone else's blood relative that violated those rules of conduct and treatment of prisoners.

I do not expect someone with a soldiers education requirements to understand what is involved with turning uranium into the sun in less than a millisecond. Ignorance of a sounding radiation counter is a different story. I guess this is what happens when our government refuses to sign and abide by nuclear anti-proliferation treaties and such. Fallout.

Twenty-six Iraqis found murdered today. Very sad news. Meanwhile, the American death toll reaches 1,510.
CNN Story

[ March 09, 2005, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: bobby78751 ]

When will these people finally receive the "cakewalk" memo??!!!